Meeting of minds

Some students tend to learn best on their own when a school project or a test looms, but others do their best thinking, learning and remembering working in a group.

Take Everett Brown, a senior at George Mason University in Fairfax who is majoring in psychology. In his sophomore year, he joined a tutor-led study group to get extra help in finite mathematics, his weakest subject.

“We were able to help each other out and feed off of each other,” he says. “We all practiced problems together, and I was able to pick up on their thought processes on how they approached the problems.”

Group study, which can be teacher- or student-directed, brings students together to solve a problem, develop a project, prepare for a test, learn material for a class or share information. As they work, the students can teach and learn from one another.

“The theory behind that is if you can teach it to someone else, you really know that material well,” says Margaret Walsh, executive director of secondary programs at Alexandria City Public Schools. “It’s like how kids reinforce each other in sports. … They help each other get better and better. It’s a reiterative process.”

Before engaging in group study, high school and college students can use a few methods to help them get the most out of their time.

“A lot of times, people have to be taught how to work in a group, because it’s not natural to them,” says Chris Gutierrez, literacy coach for T.C. Williams High School in Alexandria. “They have to be taught group process, how to not let one person do all of the work. … It has to be a democratic sharing where everyone will learn.”

Group study operates on two levels. Students get together to learn and work on the content of an assignment or project, and second, they engage in a group process, according to Sharon McDade, associate professor of higher education at the Graduate School of Education and Human Development at George Washington University in Northwest.

The group process begins with students coming together and figuring out what they want to work on. They resolve any conflicts and disagreements about plans for the group, then establish norms for interacting with one another and dealing with conflicts that may arise before starting “to work efficiently and effectively,” says Ms. McDade, who holds a doctorate in administrative planning and social policy.

Once the group forms, students typically identify one or more group leaders unless the faculty member who requires the group work chooses the leader or establishes a process for making the selection, Ms. McDade says. The students may choose a task leader, who decides what the group needs to do and how work will be completed; a process leader, who sets up meeting times and makes sure students participate equally; and a timekeeper, who carries out the time line for group work.

“The longer that a group is together, the more roles emerge. Those are the key roles that emerge early,” she says.

Students bring to the group their different personality types and learning styles, which include visual, auditory and hands-on, says Jackie Ziegele-Hillman, a counselor at Northern Virginia Community College’s Loudoun campus in Sterling. “When you’re working in a group, you might fill in for one another,” she says.

In other words, the students might use their strengths and abilities to help one another. For instance, a visual learner can help students who do not understand something that was read, and an auditory learner can clarify a missed point in a lecture. The ideal group size to achieve this mix of abilities is five to seven students, Ms. Ziegele-Hillman says.

At George Mason, group study is a way “to engage students to teach other students,” says Ann Lewis, director of the university’s retention initiative, a project handled by the student academic affairs office aimed at keeping students in school. “We find that they learn better,” she says.

The office staff organizes study groups for a selection of large lecture and freshman introduction courses and for individual students with transcripts showing a high number of D’s, F’s or withdrawals. The staff recruits advanced-level students to serve as supplemental instruction (SI) tutors for courses in which they earned A’s, in exchange for a stipend.

“We learned that when students sit in a large lecture hall, they get lost and are intimidated to ask questions. We’re trying to personalize the learning part,” Mrs. Lewis says.

Mr. Brown, who is now an SI for introduction to psychology, says he lets the students facilitate the group sessions so they can come in with their own questions and concerns, learn from one another and get a conversation going. “They are able to get into a group discussion they wouldn’t be able to get in their classes,” he says.

Particularly in law school, group discussion is important for debating issues, says David Jaffe, associate dean for student affairs at the American University Washington College of Law in Northwest. “It’s not getting to the right answer. It’s about analyzing and assessing questions and supporting a side with the strongest arguments,” he says. “You’re thinking aloud. You’re learning about opposing points of view that might not be yours.”

To get the debate going, Mr. Jaffe recommends that study groups have just three or four students because students in a larger group may get sidetracked. He suggests students set an agenda ahead of time, stick to it over the course of the study session and make sure each does his or her share of the work.

“Otherwise, the group says you’re not pulling your weight,” he says.

Carol Blum, director of high school instruction at Montgomery County Public Schools, suggests that students start with the questions they have about the subject under study.

“Reading to each other doesn’t do it,” she says. “It’s better if they do the reading on their own and get together after the reading was done.”

Mrs. Blum found that when she taught an advanced-placement English class, students could explain concepts to one another better than she could because they used examples from their own environments.

“When they study together, they relate what they’re studying to what’s relevant to the world,” she says. “They can connect it to something in their own lives.”